Chapter 19: Playing with Fire
Vale City, Vale.
Jack Plum, a small-time crook with a semblance that let him channel purple beams of energy from his forehead, walked into the First National Bank of Vale with three empty duffle bags tucked under his trenchcoat. Once he spotted the vault, he pulled a pistol from his coat and shot both security guards. Ignoring the civilians and tellers running away in fear, he used the energy from his forehead to melt the vault door and walked inside, unaware of the blonde young woman making her way past the crowd into the bank.
"Oh, what a good boy am I…" Plum chuckled to himself as he began stuffing lien bills into the duffle bags.
"Well, well, well! If it isn't Jack Plum! Still robbing banks?"
The criminal recognized that voice and instinctively drew his weapon to fire at the source. But the bullet was shattered to pieces once Ember Celica collided with it. Yang Xiao Long brushed the dust off of her shoulder with a cocky smile and rested both hands on her hips as she stood in the entrance of the vault.
"Y'know, most people hardly ever use banks anymore." She remarked. "You're lucky you found actual lien."
Plum wasted no time in firing another purple beam from his forehead while also using both pistols in an attempt to hit his enemy. However, Yang was much younger and more agile than the middle-aged criminal and easily dodged all of his attacks. But whenever she tried to rush him, a strange device on his back channeled his semblance's energy into a protective force-field that sent her reeling back in pain. Noticing the marble pillars holding up the bank's ceiling, she got an idea.
She kept drawing his line of fire towards the pillars by punching debris at him. Her plan was to trick him into forcing the roof to collapse on him and overload the device. All the while, she kept him distracted by joking around.
"Remember our first fight, Plum?" She asked, fondly. "Me, so young and stupid. You, just… stupid! I mean, what're the odds that you'd choose this bank of all times?! Guess you're Plum outta luck!"
"You talk too much!" Plum snapped as he fired another beam.
"Well, that's a matter of opinion!" Yang shouted back, cheekily, as she continued to dodge enemy fire. "I mean, is there really any standard metric for how much talking one should do?! And who determines the appropriate ratio of talking versus not talking?! Also, how would you measure it?! Words per minute?! Syllables per second?! Or is it more about how many words one uses to express a single thought?! It's all so subjective! If you ask me, some people don't talk enough!"
"GRR, SHUT UP!"
Just then, the criminal had finally destroyed enough pillars for a section of the rook to collapse on top of him. Just as Yang hoped, the weight was too much for the force-field to deflect and Plum was knocked out. Curiously, Yang stepped over the rubble and plucked the device off of his back to get a better look. It almost looked as if it were a plastic toy.
"You didn't have this before…" She remarked.
Suddenly, two police cars arrived and Yang instinctively tucked the device into her belt before hoisting Plum over her shoulder and making her way outside. She flopped the criminal onto the hood and turned to greet the policemen. "Good morning, officers." She beamed.
"Mrs. Xiao Long." One of the officers smiled back as he slapped handcuffs on Plum and pushed him into the backseat. "Hope you didn't trash the place too badly this time."
"Well, technically, Jackie-boy did most of the trashing." Yang replied, bashfully, rubbing the back of her head as another marble pillar collapsed.
"Well, don't worry. The bank's insured and the bad guy got caught." The other officer shrugged. "All's well that ends well."
A few hours later, Yang returned to the apartment she and her wife shared downtown with a bag of groceries in one hand and the plastic device in the other. Yang never claimed to be the sharpest tool in the shed, but even she could tell that it was too complex a device for Plum to have built on his own. She was just putting the groceries away when she heard the front door open once again. Blake walked up and hugged Yang from behind, purring as she peppered her wife's neck with kisses.
"Did you get what I asked?"
"You mean twenty pounds of salmon?" Yang chuckled and pulled the frozen fish out of the paper bag. "Yeah, baby, I got it."
After dinner, a shower, and a ten minute quickie, Yang remembered the device she had taken from Plum and showed it off to her wife. "I mean, it looks like a toy, but it made the guy almost untouchable. Pretty freaky, huh?"
Blake arched an eyebrow as her gaze shifted between the device and her wife. "Okay, so, to be clear; you thought the best time to bring this up would be right after sex?"
Yang shrugged. "Well, I sure as hell wasn't gonna bring it up during sex. And before I was trying to make dinner before you got all handsy."
Blake rolled her eyes before taking the device into her own hands to study it. "Y'know, this looks like something another crook I stopped had. Yeah, this guy had a squirt-gun that shot lasers. I was actually writing about it for an article in the paper."
Yang arched an eyebrow. "When did you start working for a paper?"
"Well, with Grimm attacks dwindling we've gotta eat somehow." Blake shrugged before looking back at the device. "I wonder if these devices are connected."
"Well if there is a connection, then there's only one person who'd be able to see it," Yang declared. "Come on: it's time we called an old friend."
Two minutes later, the couple had gotten dressed appropriately enough for a scroll-call and dialed the world's greatest detective.
"Blake?" The red-haired vigilante answered. "I was just about to head out."
"Yeah, hate to bug you, but we were hoping you could help us with something." Blake explained. "You see, Yang and I ran into a couple of guys with weapons that look like plastic toys-"
"Did you say plastic toys?" Svetlana asked, just to be sure she heard correctly.
"Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but-"
"No, no, we had something like that not too long ago." Svetlana clarified. "Someone was selling these weapons in Magenta's neighborhood. Give me just a moment…"
Svetlana used her computer to bring up the video feed from the camera built into the lenses of Magenta's new mask. Luckily, he had recorded the deal as it went down, and she scanned all three faces of those involved as she watched the playback.
["So any of these strike your fancy?"] The dealer asked. ["We've got a wind-up toy that doubles as a grenade, we've got a nuclear easy-bake oven-"]
["Dude, all I wanna do is rob somebody."] The client scoffed. ["Not blow them into next week."]
["Okay, okay, I hear you. How about a slinky that doubles as a grappling hook?"]
["Huh, now that actually sounds-"]
["Not so fast, creeps!"] Magenta shouted as he suddenly jumped down from the lamppost. ["You guys give toy stores a bad name!"]
The client ran away, but Magenta was able to subdue the dealers before the police arrived. Once the video ended, the facial scan was complete. Svetlana sighed in disappointment. "Sorry, Blake, but my computer doesn't have anything on the two men trying to sell the weapons."
"Seriously? Nothing?" Yang groaned.
"Oh, wait. Here we go…" Svetlana perked up, slightly, once the computer gave her something else. "The potential client was identified. Cynthia Quartz. She has a juvie record. And an address in Magenta's neighborhood. I could ask him to pay her a visit and find out what she can tell us about her dealers. He's been dying for any chance to test out the new suit I made for him."
"Yes! Yes, please!" Yang clapped, happily.
"Alright, I'll get back to you as soon as I can."
New Rushland, Vale.
Cynthia Quartz whistled to herself as she prepared the ingredients for dinner, unaware of the young vigilante sneaking into her apartment. Magenta twisted a dial on his glove's wrist which revealed a collapsible sling-shot built into it. He pulled the sling back and fired an adhesive substance at Cynthia's hand just as she rested it on the counter. Now that she finally noticed him, Magenta decided it was the perfect opportunity to try out his new mask's voice-distorter.
"Remember me?" He asked as he approached her. "I need information and you're gonna give it to me now! We can do this the easy way or the hard way! Your choice!"
Instead of being intimidated, however, Cynthia seemed more annoyed by the vigilante's attitude. "What happened to your voice?" She asked.
"What do you mean?" Magenta replied, slightly put off by her reaction.
"I heard you when you were being tortured by IQ on that broadcast last week. I know what a girl sounds like."
"What?! I'm not a girl! I'm a boy! I mean, I'm a - I'm a man! Look, who were those guys? I need to know! Gimme names! Or else!"
In response to his audacity, Cynthia used her free hand to throw a kitchen knife towards Magenta. He just barely dodged it in time, but was visibly startled by the action.
"You've never done this before, have you?" She chuckled.
With a heavy sigh, Magenta turned off the voice distorter and got back on his feet. "Look, Ms. Quartz, these weapons are crazy dangerous! They can't just be out on the streets! Please, help me…?"
Cynthia glanced over at a photo on the refrigerator. "I don't want those weapons on the streets either. I've got a six-year-old brother to take care of."
"Okay, great! So what can you tell me about who makes them?"
"Nothing. I don't know who makes them or where they are." Cynthia rubbed her chin in thought. "But I might know where they're gonna be. This crazy chick I used to work for is supposed to be doing a deal with them on the east side of Vale City tomorrow. Name's Masha Brunhilde."
"Yes! Thank you!" Magenta turned towards the window to report his findings. "Oh, uh, that stuff's gonna dissolve in half an hour!"
"No, no, no! Get this stuff off me!" Cynthia snapped. "Come on, man! I've gotta make dinner!"
"Half an hour! You deserve that! You're a criminal! Bye, Ms. Criminal!"
Vale City, Vale.
"So that's the situation, eh?" Yang said with a nod. "That'll be useful going forward. I'll be sure to keep an eye out for anything suspicious."
"If you need help-" Svetlana tried to offer, but she was cut off.
"Nah, I got this. Thanks, Svets! Bye!" With that, Yang ran out of the room to prepare for tomorrow.
"She's very eager." Svetlana remarked.
"That's one word for it." Blake sighed. "Thanks, Svetlana. I'll let you know what we find."
The next day, Yang and Blake drove towards the east side of Vale City where they found an abandoned warehouse perfect for shady deals. They parked the car on a hill far enough to not be seen and Blake took out a pair of binoculars to begin the stake-out. Unfortunately, hours passed and no one arrived.
"Ugh, this is so boring!" Yang groaned. "Stake-outs are never like this on TV! Usually there's only like two lines of dialogue between the main characters and then the bad guys show up."
Blake rolled her eyes and looked up from her binoculars. "Yeah, well, life's not like TV." She muttered before looking back through the binoculars. "Wait, there she is!"
Sure enough, some men showed up around the warehouse, with Masha Brunhilde among them, no doubt hoping to make a deal here.
"You know, normally I'd make a joke about how you were immediately proven wrong, but I feel this isn't the time nor the place for that," Yang remarked.
"You'd be correct," Blake replied with a slightly rueful grin before gaining a more serious expression. "Still we shouldn't jump down there too quickly, as they technically haven't done anything illegal yet."
"Right, let's just see what happens before we take action here." Yang said with a nod.
With that, the duo stealthily snuck down to the warehouse and listened in through the window. Blake took out a recorder and pressed the red button as they heard what was going on. Masha Brunhilde was describing her latest embezzlement scheme before moving on to one of her groups' latest robbery. While Blake was enjoying the juicy details, she was growing impatient at the fact that they weren't bringing up the toy weapons.
At last, "Alright, alright. Let's see those novelty guns you were talking about." Masha requested.
Two men stepped forward with a suitcase and placed it on the table in the middle of the room. They opened it up to reveal three plastic guns similar to the ones the Bumblebee couple had seen before. Unfortunately, Yang got a bit too interested in the story and leaned too far on the window and fell into the warehouse right on top of the men selling the plastic guns, knocking them out.
Blake facepalmed as her wife looked up at the hardened criminals. "Uh… hey, guys." Yang smiled, weakly.
All of the criminals drew their weapons and opened fire. Blake drew Gambol Shroud and dropped down to the floor to give Yang some cover.
"What do we do, boss?" one of the goons called out to Masha Brunhilde in the middle of the fight.
"Take the money and get out of here," Masha called out. "Meet up at the hideout later."
"What about you, boss?"
"Me? Oh, don't worry: I was never actually here," Masha, or rather what was revealed to be a robot duplicate declared - with said robot beeping to show that it was about to explode - said with a teasing grin. "Now go!"
The goons quickly grabbed the cash from their earlier heist and rushed into their van before driving off. Yang's ears perked up at the sound of the beeping and instinctively jumped onto her wife to shield her from the blast.
"Thanks," Blake felt the need to say after Yang had protected her from the Masha-bot's explosion.
"Don't mention it," Yang said with a smile, rolling her shoulder to make sure that the explosion hadn't dislocated anything before taking in the few goons that had stayed behind to try and slow them down. "Think you can hold your own against these guys while I go after the group in the van?"
"Well it's not the first time I've dealt with numerous armed men, so I should be fine," Blake declared with a nod, recalling her White Fang days. "Not to mention I sent an SOS to the cops so I should have some backup soon."
"Okay then: I'll be back before you know it," Yang promised before heading off to get on Bumblebee, her motorbike.
Meanwhile, having believed to have lost anyone who had been following them, Brunhilde's men parked their armored vehicle in a warehouse and started emptying it out, cheering as they did.
"We scored big time, boys," the de-facto leader of the group declared with a grin. "Nothing can stop us now."
As if to prove him wrong, however, a strange new voice in the warehouse suddenly made itself known. "Hello boys."
"What the…?" the leader called out as a stout woman wearing a mask that wouldn't have been out of place if seen on a children's toy came in tossing a ball up and down in her hand.
"Who is this supposed to be?" one of the other goons couldn't help but ask.
"Terribly sorry to interrupt your celebration, gentlemen, but I have a message for your boss, Masha Brunhilde," the mysterious masked woman declared even as she continued to toss the ball up and down in her hand. "Tell her that the Craftswoman will be paying her a visit very soon and when she does, the time for fun and games will be over for her and her little operation."
"What is she talking about?" one of the goons felt the need to ask
"Who cares? Get her!" one of his companions yelled out.
With that, the goons quickly went after the masked woman even as she dropped the ball and made it for the exit, jamming the door shut as she made her way out. The goons attempted to force the door open, not registering that the ball was bouncing higher and faster until it suddenly bounced off the ceiling and into one of them, knocking him to the ground in the process. Unfortunately for them, the ball continued to bounce, destroying the area around them in the process.
"Get that door open!" the boss yelled out even as the bouncing ball continued to tear the building apart.
"We can't: it's sealed shut from the other side," one of the goons called out even as he lifted his wounded companion up and draped his arm over his shoulder.
"What do we do?!" the other non-injured goon couldn't help but ask.
"Back in the car: that thing is solid steel: no way this murder ball is going to be able to kill us in there!" the boss declared while taking his wounded comrade's arm and quickly helping him into the vehicle in question. Unfortunately for him, however, no sooner had they sealed themselves in the ball managed to achieve enough speed to start denting the vehicle.
"We're going to die!" one of the goons yelled out even as the others started calling out for someone, anyone, to come and save them.
Fortunately for them, a certain blonde brawler happened to be speeding by the warehouse on her motorcycle and managed to pick up on the frightened cries. Wasting no time in deploying her Ember Celica, Yang quickly burst into the area where she had heard the cries for help, just barely able to comprehend the destruction before her before being repeatedly pelted by the ball from earlier. Fortunately for her, her training with her mother helped her dodge the next few strikes and take in the trajectory of the fast moving projectile. After making a few mental calculations about where the ball was most likely to end up, and with a quick slash of her Dragon Fang, the ball was cleaved in two, stopping the destruction in its tracks.
Yang couldn't help but rub a sore spot on her side even as she took out her scroll to contact the police. "I found your robbers, guys, though you might want to send an ambulance and a crane for the armored car as someone got here before me."
With that, she hung up and went to the back of the van to give the soon-to-be prisoners some fresh air while they could still enjoy it.
"Hey, fellas," Yang called out after she pried the door to the dented armored car open, taking in how the occupants were torn between relief at being saved and despair at how they had gotten caught by a well-known huntress. "Good news is that you will be receiving medical attention and/or therapy after what just happened. Bad news is that you'll be in jail while this happens."
The goons just groaned in response upon hearing that.
One hour later, Blake arrived in a taxi cab just as Yang finished giving a statement to the police.
"Everything okay?" Blake couldn't help but ask.
"I'm a bit sore, but I'll be alright," Yang declared even as she continued looking at the banged up van from earlier. "Still, I get the feeling that things are going to get worse before they get any better."
"Well, on the bright side, at least I've still got the evidence to put Masha Brunhilde away for a while." Blake smiled as she held up the recorder.
"I don't know," Yang said with a slight frown thinking back to the robot duplicate from earlier. "I'm worried that Masha might try and claim that someone else had sent the robot to pin the blame on her."
"Fair point: I'll get in contact with some folks I knew in the White Fang and see if they can find anything that could tie that robot to Masha, just to be on the safe side," Blake declared with a nod, glad that her wife had caught that particular detail.
Later, Masha Brunhilde herself could be seen discussing the situation with one of her lieutenants on her yacht. "I see," she finally said after a short pause to think of anything. "Go ahead and let the men who were captured stay locked up for at least a few days so as to recover from what happened before arranging for their release, that is assuming they don't try and cut any deals with the police, in which case see them punished and do what you can to discredit anything that they might say."
"I'll see what I can do, but Boss, what are we going to do about that evidence those huntresses have collected?"
"Eh, I'm not worried: even if they do manage to connect that robot duplicate to me, I've got the judge in my back pocket: he even thinks of having me declared guilty and his daughter gets a pair of cement shoes," Masha smugly declared before losing her smile as she thinks over what she learned had happened to her other men.
"Problem boss?"
"You could say that," Masha declared, "especially as I've got a feeling that I know who this Craftswoman might be."
"So what are you going to do about it?"
"Not sure yet," Masha admitted, "but one thing is for certain: whoever this Craftswoman is will be in for a rude awakening if she thinks that I'm an easy mark."
Suddenly, as if she had tempted fate, the waves began to rock the ship. Masha and her lieutenant held onto the rail to balance themselves just as the source of the disturbance broke through the surface. A giant, inflatable submarine popped up alongside the yacht and aimed a balloon-like cannon at the ship. Brunhilde jumped off of the ship just in time before it was blown to kingdom come. She swam to the shore and stood up to find someone waiting for her.
"Been a long time, hasn't it?" Craftswoman teasingly asked even as she stepped out into the open with a giant bubble wand in her hand, setting a bucket of bubble soap on the ground as she did.
"What is this?"
"This is what I like to call your past sins coming back to haunt you," Craftswoman declared even as she dipped the bubble wand in the bucket and used her giant bubble rod to produce some giant bubbles, which was all the proof that Masha needed to confirm that she had been on the right track with a theory she had regarding who she was dealing with.
"I don't know how you're here, but let me tell you, it's going to be a short visit," Masha growled out as she pulled out a gun…only for the bubbles to blow up and surround her with an anesthetic gas, knocking her out in the process.
"Maybe a bit longer than you think."
Later Blake was pacing around her home, trying to make sense of Masha's disappearance, having learned about it from the police she was in contact with, when the doorbell rang. "Who could that be?" the faunus couldn't help but ask even as she opened the door…only to blink in confusion upon finding no one there. Said confusion only grew upon seeing that someone had left a package for her.
"Odd, I don't remember ordering anything," she declared as she cautiously picked up the box before her. She set it down on the kitchen table and used Gambol Shroud to cut it open. Inside was a toy mouse commonly played with by pet cats. Blake scowled as she picked up the toy, annoyed at someone's racist attempt at a joke. She was just about to toss it in the trash when a stream of gas puffed out of the toy's nose and into her face. She dropped the toy and fell to the floor.
When Blake woke up, she found herself dressed in a frilly maid outfit with plush cat paw gloves on her hands. Even more concerning, she appeared to be in a giant dollhouse with plastic furniture everywhere and the fourth wall missing. She cautiously made her way towards the open wall to see that she was in a large, dilapidated toy factory.
"Oh, Mrs. Belladonna~!" An eerie voice called out.
Blake looked down to see the Craftswoman beckoning to her.
"Oh, Mrs. Belladonna~! Can you come out to play~?"
At the same time, Yang was desperately trying to find out where Blake had been taken. She kept trying to call for help, but Svetlana didn't work during the day and Ruby was busy watching Penny while Weiss tried to take control of her family company. She ultimately ended up at the newspaper where Blake had gotten a job in an attempt to use their computers to find a lead.
"Blake is still missing, eh?" Ginny Nickel, a pup photographer, asked.
"Yeah, unfortunately so," Yang called out to her wife's coworker. "But I got permission from her boss to look through some of her files to see if there was anything that could tell me the connection between Masha Brunhilde and Craftswoman."
"You know the computers here are able to cross-index the files we have on hand: I can show you how, if you're interested."
As all of this was going on, Blake was being forced to have breakfast with Craftswoman, who tilted her head to express curiosity before saying "I take it that you have questions about why I brought you here."
"Among other things," Blake admitted. "I mean, you have to know that my wife won't take kindly to you kidnapping me."
"Ah, but I was afraid that if I had attempted to ask to have you interview me you'd have turned me down," Craftswoman declared. "I'll admit that my methods might leave something to be desired, but when I have my story printed in that paper you're working for, I want them to get it right."
Meanwhile, Yang and Ginny continued to use the computer to find out who Craftswoman was. But nothing came up.
"Maybe we're going about this in the wrong way," Yang said with a thoughtful expression. "Instead of focusing on the Craftswoman, we should focus on the thing that connects her and Brunhilde."
"Okay then: I'll try cross-indexing Brunhilde with the word 'toy' and see if that gives us anything useful" Ginny declared with a nod before perking up as an article popped up soon afterwards. "Hey, look at that, we got a hit."
Yang simply nodded as she looked at the headline of the article. "'Toymaker Sentenced to Ten Years.'"
Meanwhile back with Blake, Craftswoman had cleared the dishes away and had set up a popup book she had created on the table. "It's a very sad story: one that a lot of folks have all but forgotten. Once upon a time there was a kindhearted woman who wanted nothing more than to bring joy to the hearts of children with the toys that she went out of her way to create. She dreamt of creating a wondrous toy factory to help her achieve this goal, but had no way to pay for it."
Blake witnessed a picture of Masha Brunhilde show up as he page was turned, with Craftswoman pulling a tab to show Masha holding out some cash while devil horns appeared on her head. "This is meant to symbolize that the woman unknowingly made a deal with the devil to achieve her goal, right?"
"You know your storytelling elements well, Mrs. Belladonna-Xiao Long," Craftswoman declared with an impressed nod, "and you are indeed correct about the direction in which this story was going. You see, a rather nasty woman showed up one day offering to pay for the factory the toymaker wished to create, under one condition."
"'The factory became a front for a numbers bracket, as well as a weapons manufacturing joint after hours.'" Yang read from the article in front of her, unknowingly continuing with the story that Craftswoman was telling Blake. "'Although Masha Brunhilde was named as a suspect, only the proprietor of the factory, Polka Dott, was convicted.'"
"Sounds like Brunhilde played her for a patsy," Blake's co-worker remarked, feeling a bit sorry for the woman.
"The devil of a woman laughed as the police threw the kindly toymaker into the dungeon for the rest of her days," Craftswoman declared as she continued with her story, unknowingly confirming what Yang and Ginny suspected, much to Blake's sympathy.
Meanwhile Yang nodded as the pieces were coming together in her mind. "I'd bet all of my lunch money that we just found our Craftswoman."
"I'm afraid that you'd be going without lunch then, Mrs. Belladonna-Xiao Long," Ginny declared even as another article was pulled up on the computer. "Take a look at this."
Yang could only blink in shock at what she was seeing. "Her obituary?"
"Poor old girl," Blake's co-worker said with a somber nod. "She died in a prison brawl that she tried to break up mere days before she had a chance at parole."
"Yeah," Yang said with an uneasy nod, before pointing to another article showcasing a picture of the toymaker playing with a little girl. "But she left behind a legacy."
"That's right, Mrs. Belladonna-Xiao Long," Craftswoman, or rather Polka Dott Junior, declared as she continued telling the story to Blake, unknowingly addressing her wife as well. "The toymaker had a daughter much like you and your wife did, but unlike your little Holly, this little girl grew up without the love and support of her mother. Without the toymaker in her life, she was cursed to bounce from foster home to foster home like a little toy that nobody wanted. A childhood is a terrible thing to lose, Mrs. Belladonna-Xiao Long, but I'm getting mine back…with interest."
Blake could only stare in horror as the woman before her slammed the book closed as she said this, realizing how unhinged she had become without knowing the love of a family…and yet despite it all, she couldn't help but pity her, knowing that she never had a choice in who she had become.
Meanwhile Ginny couldn't help but frown at what they just learned. "As insightful as this was, this still won't help you find out where Blake is."
"Actually I think it does: any chance any of those articles you found lists the address of that toy factory that we read about?" Yang asked with a thoughtful expression.
"Even if it doesn't, it shouldn't be too hard to find," Ginny said with a shrug. "Why: you think that Blake might have been taken there?"
"Yes, and not just Blake either," Yang declared with a serious expression. "If I'm right, Craftswoman plans to end things with Brunhilde where the mess with her mother began."
At that very moment, Craftswoman led Blake towards the back wall of the factory where Brunhilde was dressed up in a cartoonish prison outfit and hanging off the ground by the shoulders. Craftswoman clapped her hands and activated a squadron of toy soldiers to march in front of the subdued crime boss, forming a firing line. "I hope you're taking notes, Mrs. Belladonna-Xiao Long," Craftswoman declared. "I wouldn't want that paper you worked for to miss the part of the story where Masha Brunhilde dies."
"You lousy bitch! When I get out of this, I'm going to…" …and that was as far as Masha's anger filled rants got before Craftswoman stuffed a punch of paper in her mouth.
"My mother's old contract: I managed to grab a copy of it after she was wrongfully put away hoping to see if there was something in it that could help her," Craftswoman revealed whilst giving an unsettling grin. "Nothing came from it, obviously, but that's not important right now. No, right now, I just want you to spend your last moments choking on your own misdeeds."
Craftswoman clapped again. "Ready…" The toy soldiers stood at attention. "Aim…" They aimed at the crime boss.
Blake jumped forward and knocked down one of the toy soldiers and swiped the rifle. She opened fire on the other toys, reducing them to a pile of broken gears.
"What did you do?!" Craftswoman yelled out.
"A huntress' duty is to protect those who can't protect themselves," Blake readily replied. "And while I do agree that Masha needs to pay for what she's done, this isn't the way, Polka: there's still time to choose a better path: don't let Masha kill off what's left of your innocence."
"Trying to appeal to my better nature, eh?" Craftswoman asked before pulling out a gun. "Unfortunately for you, my better nature was killed along with my childhood."
Just then, Yang burst through a nearby wall, having located the factory earlier before using her Ember Celica to blast the gun out of Craftswoman's hand. "Get away from my wife!" she yelled out even as she mentally snorted at how ridiculous Masha looked at the moment.
Craftswoman merely scoffed in response even as she rubbed her sore hand. "Actually I had a feeling you'd show up in an angry state so I prepared a little something just for you."
She pulled out a remote control from her coat pocket and pressed the button in the center. A giant magnet activated directly above the blonde brawler and pulled her up by the prosthetic arm and Ember Celica. With her arms trapped, Yang was helpless as the magnet carried her towards a vat of boiling acid. Thinking quickly, she used her tongue to press the emergency release button on her prosthetic's strap then used all of her strength to push her feet against the magnet to pull her gauntlet away just in time.
"You cheated!" Craftswoman yelled out as Yang managed to escape her trap before giving a snarl. "But unfortunately for you, I still have one last game for us to play here."
Before anyone could react, Craftswoman flipped a switch on a remote, opening up a hatch with a few wind-up bombs dropping from the ceiling even as she slunk back into the shadows. Yang instinctively grabbed Blake and Masha and jumped towards the nearest window just in time. The explosion propelled them forwards and Yang's aura protected them from any harm.
For the most part.
"Ow: that actually hurt," Yang couldn't help but remark even as she looked at the smoldering remains of the factory, relieved that she'd managed to get Masha and Blake out of there in one piece.
Later, after the police came by, Blake couldn't help but stare at the remains of the factory - as well as taking not of how the cops were taking a few statements from Masha, who no doubt was trying to weasel her way out of any legal action against her - even as she pulled the blanket that had been given her around her shoulders, feeling more than a little relieved to be out of that costume the Craftswoman had given her.
"You okay?" Yang couldn't help but ask as she handed her wife a cup of coffee, having retrieved her prosthetic arm and Ember Celica from the wreckage following the blast.
"I am now," Blake said with a grin as she took the cup before giving a sigh. "I'll admit that there were a lot of things wrong with that woman, but I still can't help but feel sorry for her."
"Save your sympathy for those who deserve it," Masha growled out. "That Craftswoman was a loser and a freak, plain and simple, just like her mother before her. This is one funeral I'll skip."
"Assuming there's a funeral at all," one of the cops who had been combing the area called out even as he suddenly walked over to the group. "My people still haven't found a body. We did find this however."
Masha, Yang, and Blake all couldn't help the expression of shock and horror that appeared on their respective faces as there, in the cop's hand, was the cracked mask of the Craftswoman, having no doubt been left behind as she made her escape.
To Be Continued